Finds creatine improves high‑intensity power

Creatine is a sports supplement story first — not a wellness trend story. The reason people keep coming back to it is simple: short, explosive efforts run on very fast energy, and creatine helps refill that energy system. What changed this spring is that a new meta-analysis tightened the case. It didn’t just ask whether creatine “works.” It asked when it works, and whether lifting weights changes the answer. ### What actually got published? A systematic review and meta-analysis in *Frontiers in Nutrition* pulled together 39 randomized controlled trials in healthy men ages 18 to 30 and split the evidence by training context — resistance training versus non-resistance training. That matters because older reviews often lumped very different exercise setups together, which makes the results harder to interpret. Does creatine improve? The cleanest signal was anaerobic power — basically the kind of output you use for sprints, repeated hard intervals, and short bursts in the weight room. Across the pooled trials, Wingate peak power improved by 71.27 watts and mean power by 39.69 watts. Countermovement jump height also improved by 2.87 cm, though that result was noisy enough that the authors flagged it as less certain. # Why does “high-intensity” matter so much? Because creatine is not magic muscle dust — it mainly feeds the phosphocreatine system, which helps regenerate ATP fast. That system matters most when effort is brutal and brief. Think first seconds of a sprint, a heavy set, or repeated all-out bursts. It is much less about steady endurance work and much more about explosive repeatability. That basic pattern is why creatine has held up for decades while flashier supplements come and go. ### Did it build muscle too? Yes, but with a catch. Lean-mass gains showed up when creatine was paired with resistance training — fat-free mass rose by 3.39 kg and lean body mass by 2.70 kg — but not in non-resistance settings. Basically, creatine seems to help more when there is a lifting stimulus to turn extra training capacity into actual tissue gain. No lifting, no comparable body-composition bump. One paper saying the same old thing? Not really. Another 2025 meta-analysis in *Nutrients* went even broader, covering 72 randomized trials and 1,997 participants, and also found stronger compound-lift strength and power outcomes — including bench press, squat, vertical jump, and Wingate peak power — especially alongside resistance training. A separate 2026 network meta-analysis in trained athletes ranked creatine as. Different methods, same direction. ### What about the brain-health hype? That part is more tentative. There is real interest here because the brain also uses creatine as an energy buffer, and some reviews in older adults suggest possible benefits for memory and attention. But the evidence is still thin and uneven, and an EFSA evaluation said a cause-and-effect link for improved cognition has not been established. So the muscle-and-power case is mature. The cognition case is still in the “interesting, not settled” bucket. ### Is creatine considered safe? For healthy people using standard forms like creatine monohydrate, the mainstream sports-nutrition view is yes. The long-running ISSN position stand describes creatine as one of the most studied ergogenic aids and supports both its efficacy for high-intensity exercise and its general safety profile. That does not mean every claim around it is proven — just that the core supplement itself is not some fringe bet anymore. ### Bottom line? The new paper does not reinvent creatine. It sharpens the picture. Creatine reliably helps with high-intensity power, and it helps body composition most when paired with resistance training. That is the useful takeaway — less miracle supplement, more very specific tool.